As a devastating and life threatening disease, cancer has been the focus of tremendous amount of research in the past. As the result of these studies, a variety of cancer therapeutics have been developed with various degree of success. However, all traditional treatments have some limitations that cannot be ignored and more effective and safer treatments are needed by cancer patients. Recently, apoptosis-inducing molecules of tumor cells have attracted attention in the field of cancer therapy. These molecules are tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligands (TRAIL), which are powerful inhibitors of cancer cells. The biggest advantage of these molecules is that they can selectively induce the apoptosis of tumor cells with no toxic side effects on normal cells. Not only can they induce the apoptosis of nearly two-thirds of tumor cell lines, but also relatively effective on tumor cells that are not sensitive to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Therefore, TRAIL has gradually become a hot topic in cancer research since their discovery.
At present time, scientists have successfully treated cancer using tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligands, which come from synthetic recombinant proteins and antibodies. Such recombinant form of soluble TRAIL has shown to induce tumor cell apoptosis. However, it can also simultaneously induce normal liver cell apoptosis. To avoid the toxic side effects, researchers have tried to obtain TRAIL by other means. U.S. Patent US2014/0335048A1 discloses a pharmaceutical composition for the active ingredient (7-benzyl-4-(2-methylbenzyl) 1,2,6,7,8,9-hexahydro-imidazo[1,2-a]pyrido[3,4-e]pyrimidine-5(4H)-one (TIC10), which stimulates the body to produce TRAIL while avoiding the problems of existing recombinant protein and antibody based treatments; however, there are issues regarding its applicability and activity.